Planning Commission further reduced poverty line to Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas, scaling down India's poverty ratio to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, the estimates which are likely to raise the hackles of civil society.

An individual above a monthly consumption of Rs 859.6 in urban and Rs 672.8 in rural areas is not considered poor, as per the controversial formula.

Furthermore, the Plan panel has kept the poverty threshold even lower than it submitted to the Supreme Court last year, which created an outcry among the civil society.

The Plan panel had said in its affidavit before the apex court that the "poverty line at June 2011 price level can be placed provisionally at Rs 965 (32 per day) per capita per month in urban areas and Rs 781 (26 per day) in rural areas".

The civil society had questioned this definition stating it was very low. As per estimates released today, the number of poor in India has declined to 34.47 crore in 2009-10 from 40.72 crore in 2004-05 estimated on the basis of controversial Tendulkar Committee methodology. The methodology recommended by the Committee includes spending on health and education, besides the calorie intake.

Among religious groups, Sikhs have lowest poverty ratio in rural areas at 11.9 per cent, whereas in urban areas, Christians have the lowest proportion of poor at 12.9 per cent. Poverty ratio is the highest for Muslims, at 33.9 per cent, in urban areas.

Poverty in rural areas declined at a faster pace than in urban cities between 2004-05 and 2009-10, according to the Planning Commission estimates released today.

The total number of poor in the country has been estimated at 34.47 crore in 2009-10, as against 40.72 crore in 2004-05.

"The all India head count (HCR) ratio has declined by 7.3 percentage points from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, with rural poverty declining by 8 percentage points from 41.8 per cent to 33.8 per cent and urban poverty declining by 4.8 percentage point form 25.7 per cent to 20.9 per cent," said an official statement.

The data revealed that the poverty has increased in North-eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland, the statement said.

Some of the bigger states, such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh have shown only marginal decline in poverty ratio, particularly in rural areas.

The Planning Commission's estimates of poverty are based on methodology recommended by the Tendulkar Committee, which includes spending on health and education, besides the calorie intake.

The data reveals that among religious groups, Sikhs have lowest poverty ratio in rural areas at 11.9 per cent, whereas in urban areas, Christians have the lowest proportion of poor in the country at 12.9 per cent.

In rural areas, poverty ratio for Muslims is very high in states such as Assam (53.6 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (44.4 per cent), West Bengal (34.4 per cent) and Gujarat (31.4 per cent).

In urban areas, poverty ratio at all India level is the highest for Muslims at 33.9 per cent. Similarly, for urban areas, the ratio is high for Muslims in states such as Rajasthan (29.5 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (49.5 per cent), Gujarat (42.4 per cent), Bihar (56.5 per cent) and West Bengal (34.9 per cent).

Among social categories, Scheduled Tribes face the highest level of poverty at 47.4 per cent, followed by Scheduled Castes at 42.3 per cent and Other Backward Castes at 31.9 per cent as against 33.8 per cent for all classes in rural areas.

In urban areas, Scheduled Castes (SCs) have poverty ratio of 34.1 per cent, followed by Scheduled Tribes (STs) at 30.4 per cent and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) at 24.3 per cent against 20.9 per cent for all classes.

In rural Bihar and Chhattisgarh, nearly two-third of SCs and STs are poor, whereas in states such as Manipur, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh the poverty ratio for these groups is more than half.

How is lowering poverty rates good for reducing poverty? India has high inflation so it should be going up. According to the UN standard, India has 70%.

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Thats because the CONs and their mouth pieces will say anything to make it appear as if the Indians are doing great under their, corrupt good for nothing governance And deviate the issues away from their massive scams.

"Hey look, we reduced the poverty rates, so vote for us" Damn the CONgress and its supporters

It must be terrible to be poor. I do not mean this in any condescending way. I just hope the current system changes for the better.

Its funny how west points fingers and says India has many poor. The people fail to notice that they have poor too, but as they can be provided benefits, given a government sponsored house to live in the poverty is hidden from the general public.

I see lots of people here on the NHS and I see the poverty every day. I feel sorry for them, but I feel more sorry for the third world poor as they have no chance of ever recieving benefits. I sincerely hope the current system changes. I just feel it will, and very soon.

Planning Commission further reduced poverty line to Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas, scaling down India's poverty ratio to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, the estimates which are likely to raise the hackles of civil society.

An individual above a monthly consumption of Rs 859.6 in urban and Rs 672.8 in rural areas is not considered poor, as per the controversial formula.

Furthermore, the Plan panel has kept the poverty threshold even lower than it submitted to the Supreme Court last year, which created an outcry among the civil society.

The Plan panel had said in its affidavit before the apex court that the "poverty line at June 2011 price level can be placed provisionally at Rs 965 (32 per day) per capita per month in urban areas and Rs 781 (26 per day) in rural areas".

The civil society had questioned this definition stating it was very low. As per estimates released today, the number of poor in India has declined to 34.47 crore in 2009-10 from 40.72 crore in 2004-05 estimated on the basis of controversial Tendulkar Committee methodology. The methodology recommended by the Committee includes spending on health and education, besides the calorie intake.

Among religious groups, Sikhs have lowest poverty ratio in rural areas at 11.9 per cent, whereas in urban areas, Christians have the lowest proportion of poor at 12.9 per cent. Poverty ratio is the highest for Muslims, at 33.9 per cent, in urban areas.

Poverty in rural areas declined at a faster pace than in urban cities between 2004-05 and 2009-10, according to the Planning Commission estimates released today.

The total number of poor in the country has been estimated at 34.47 crore in 2009-10, as against 40.72 crore in 2004-05.

"The all India head count (HCR) ratio has declined by 7.3 percentage points from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, with rural poverty declining by 8 percentage points from 41.8 per cent to 33.8 per cent and urban poverty declining by 4.8 percentage point form 25.7 per cent to 20.9 per cent," said an official statement.

The data revealed that the poverty has increased in North-eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland, the statement said.

Some of the bigger states, such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh have shown only marginal decline in poverty ratio, particularly in rural areas.

The Planning Commission's estimates of poverty are based on methodology recommended by the Tendulkar Committee, which includes spending on health and education, besides the calorie intake.

The data reveals that among religious groups, Sikhs have lowest poverty ratio in rural areas at 11.9 per cent, whereas in urban areas, Christians have the lowest proportion of poor in the country at 12.9 per cent.

In rural areas, poverty ratio for Muslims is very high in states such as Assam (53.6 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (44.4 per cent), West Bengal (34.4 per cent) and Gujarat (31.4 per cent).

In urban areas, poverty ratio at all India level is the highest for Muslims at 33.9 per cent. Similarly, for urban areas, the ratio is high for Muslims in states such as Rajasthan (29.5 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (49.5 per cent), Gujarat (42.4 per cent), Bihar (56.5 per cent) and West Bengal (34.9 per cent).

Among social categories, Scheduled Tribes face the highest level of poverty at 47.4 per cent, followed by Scheduled Castes at 42.3 per cent and Other Backward Castes at 31.9 per cent as against 33.8 per cent for all classes in rural areas.

In urban areas, Scheduled Castes (SCs) have poverty ratio of 34.1 per cent, followed by Scheduled Tribes (STs) at 30.4 per cent and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) at 24.3 per cent against 20.9 per cent for all classes.

In rural Bihar and Chhattisgarh, nearly two-third of SCs and STs are poor, whereas in states such as Manipur, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh the poverty ratio for these groups is more than half.

If govt doles out freebies to poor then middle class pounces on the govt. if it doesn't then also govt gets pounced on.

with our population no matter how much development and employement you give you will still not be able to give everyone a job and good standard of living...even if corruption reduces to 0%.

mathematically it is impossible to support our entire population with the avg person have a decent way of life. we have 500 million people more than what is ideal for us.

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Population is a pathetic excuse for being poor.

Now tell me why does a country like japan with a population density of 330/sq. km is so rich while a country like India with a population density of 360/ sp km so poor? Or take Singapore- Its population density is 7300/sp. km . Why is a country which is 20 times more population dense than us so rich while we are so poor?

The large population makes us inefficient- meaning all our work is getting wasted due to corruption while the well governed ones are rich not because of lower population per se, but because of a efficient use of resources and low corruption. Only a moron will still think population is responsible for India's problem when you have sufficient food production for all-( Note food production and not sufficient food distribution)

And this is so simple to understand- "if in a population of 10,000 , 100 needs to be doctors, 100 needs to be engineers, 1000 needs to be workers, 200 needs to be farmers, 1000 needs to be service providers and the rest are the dependant population(children and old people), and they can stay rich with that employment, then in a population of 10,000,000,000, then there should be that many no. of jobs in a proportionate manner and they should remain rich-that is as long as there the food production is enuff to feed them"

So i have given a basic ex. anyone with a problem can counter so that i can explain myself more clearer.

I think thats because of the lack of proper education . BY improper education i mean the madrassa education system. They need to work harder and stop voting for the CONs for getting reservation and their supposed non existant safety in India under BJP.

There is no chance that entire population will have a equitable way of life.

No chance in hell. Resources are limited while population is ever increasing.

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what effing resources are you talking about. Japan has NO resource to speak of. We have the greatest resource of all the Human resource. But we allow iut to get rusted. That is all. This is just an useless excuse to hide the inefficient govt we have.

I think thats because of the lack of proper education . BY improper education i mean the madrassa education system. They need to work harder and stop voting for the CONs for getting reservation and their supposed non existant safety in India under BJP.

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i answered your question without thinking. Sry. This is what happens when you see a fudged , ----ed up report. But what i said is also true, to some extend.

Here is a real deal. Now do you know how Per Capita income is calculated for a family ? They take the total income of the earning members of the family and divide it with the no. of people in it.

Now a family of four(two parents and two children) with a monthly income of 3600 will have a per capita income of 30 per day per person. Now for the income of 4000 for a family of five(two parents and three children) will have a per capita income of 29. Just imagine, if the poverty like is made around the 30 Rs. , then the four member family will be considered not poor and five member family will be considered to be in poverty, though in reality, there wont be any significant differance between the two.

Now with that explained, Muslims have 3+ children on average while the others have 2+. So it is expected that the figures show Muslims to be poorer. This is the magic of numbers.

There is no chance that entire population will have a equitable way of life.

No chance in hell. Resources are limited while population is ever increasing.

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I am no way suggesting the whole population can have an equitable way of life. What I am saying is there is no chance of that under the current system. There has to be a better system where there could be a chance for everyone to try having a shot at it.

Look at the loss in the Coal because of lack of transparency man. You still think the population is the problem for India?

If we have low levels of corruptions, then we can have low levels of poverty in matter of twenty years- thats all it takes for the society to transform.

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what if every couple have 10 children for the next 100 years.

what do you think about that ?

fossil fuels are limited resources...like oil, wood, coal etc they are not in unlimited quantities. The greater the demand the greater the price and when its supply reduces which it is then also its value rises which means it will cost more.

If population keeps on increasing then new land will have to used to build houses on which means less land for forests and agriculture. So agricultural land is already being reduced while due to increase in population more food in required.

you are sounding like that christian church guy on ndtv who claims no matter what the population everything will be there.

now if he shifted entirely to renewable sources of energy then our population could be looked after but i dont see that happening.

fossil fuels are limited resources...like oil, wood, coal etc they are not in unlimited quantities. The greater the demand the greater the price and when its supply reduces which it is then also its value rises which means it will cost more.

If population keeps on increasing then new land will have to used to build houses on which means less land for forests and agriculture. So agricultural land is already being reduced while due to increase in population more food in required.

you are sounding like that christian church guy on ndtv who claims no matter what the population everything will be there.

now if he shifted entirely to renewable sources of energy then our population could be looked after but i dont see that happening.

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Come on man you answered your own questions. Its because we have these looters that we are not changing to the renewable resources. There is always the nuke energy which can substitute for the energy requirements and we can make the use of coal and oil to the bare minimum-By using the electricity for mass transports like metros, trains etc.

And come on did you even get what i said-. I said as long as we have enuff agricultural production- Do you know that per hectare yield of India is just 1/4 th of that in advanced countries?. We can even support twice our current population if and only if we have manage our resources properly.

And having 10 children is not bad-provided they are developed to the fullest potential . I said Human resource remember? And frankly with the population growth down- we cant blame the population any more.

And now tell me if population was the only ill we face- Why in the name of god were we poor 30 years back- when at the same time Japan -much worse than us overcame the poverty and became the second largest economy within the same time period. And why are we better now considering that we have a much larger population.

And you seem to agree the resources are not utilised properly-which is my point the whole time